Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

GameTrailers has just published a video of Iron Fist, the latest character to be revealed for the game and the official game site has details on the character. For those who don’t know this character (myself included), the details on Iron Fist reveal he wields a mystic force (is there any other kind?) that basically amps up his cool martial arts skills. While on the site, it’s worth checking out the recent broader game trailer and there’s several things of note.

Firstly, and this requires me to reveal a level of geekiness I’ve previously not chosen to share, the storyline is going to be lifted from Marvel’s Civil War comic series. The trailer is entitled “Road to Civil War”. For those who have better things to do than follow the universe story arcs of Marvel, Civil War is a recent epic that discusses themes of identity and terrorism and it splits the superhero community in two, as a law is passed which requires the heroes to reveal their secret identities. Peter Parker steps up and takes off his mask, while other goes underground. The Civil War of the title erupts between the superheroes and, well, some of them don’t make it. The point is, the subject matter for the sequel is considerably more grown up, and quite serious. While the game is likely to remain a fun beat ‘em up, the back story is, or should be, more than the traditional “save the world” mechanic. It could be interesting indeed to see certain heroes face off against each other.

Secondly, the roster of heroes on offer: the trailer shows the Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Spiderman (of course), Captain America, Iron Man and more. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 looks like it will be giving us the keys to Marvel’s marvellous mansion of superheroes, though it’s not clear which will be playable yet. It will be demanding of the developers to incorporate gameplay mechanics for such a wide variety of superpowers, but it should mean that the game is huge fun to play.